Church-pew



' (No Model.)

s. SPRINGSTEEN.

V GHURGH PEW. v 'No. 455,417. Patented July 7,1891.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

SILAS SPRINGSTEEN, OF MANITOVOC, \YI SCONSIN.

CHURCH-FEW.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 455,417, dated July '7,1891. Application filed August 4, 1890. $erial No. 360,913. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that IjSILAs SPRINGSTEEN, a citizen of the United States,residing at Manitowoc, county of Manitowoc, and State of Wisconsin, haveinvented certain new and useful Improvements in Church-Pews, which arefully set forth in the following specification,

. reference being had to the accompanying transversely.

drawings, forming a part thereof.

In the drawings, Figure 1 is a plan of a section of an auditorium seatedwith pews arranged and curved about a central point, myv

invention relating to pews of this form. Fig. 2 is a section at the line2 2 on Fig. 1, showing the construction of said pews according to-myinvention.

The purpose of this invention is to provide for pews which are curvedlongitudinally that is, in a horizontal plane-a back which has acircumflex curvature vertically, such backs being made of wood in layersglued together-that is to say, of the construction commonly known asbuilt-up wood.

A- brief history of the art will make the scope of myinvention clear.Pews curvilinear in horizontal planethat is, longitudinally curved abouta central point designed to be occupied by the speakers desk-were firstconstructed with straight backs, the difficulty of curving the wood bothlongitudinally and transversely being supposed to make it impossible toconstruct such backs with the longitudinal curve otherwise than straightSubsequently, however, it was found possible to give the back aslightcurvature transverselythat is, up and down-notwithstanding thelongitudinal or horizontal curvature, and the second stage ofdevelopment consisted of a pew-back slightly convex forward in avertical plane and concave forward in a horizontal plane.

My invention consists in making the back, which has the horizontalcurvature concave forward, convex forward in a vertical plane at theupper part, and concave forward in a vertical plane at the lower part,giving to the back the desired circumflex form shown in the drawings,which is much more comfortable than either the straight or simplyconvexly-curved back above mentioned. It would be manifestly verydifficult, if not impossible, to bend the wood horizontally, as

zontally bent in the same are and vertically bent also in the same are,but with the direction of curvature reversed, and then uniting said twopieces by their corresponding edges, which results in the circumflexform illustrated in the drawings.

It will be understood by those familiar with the art of bending andbuilding up wood for such purposes that the same clamps serve to giveform to both the parts of the back, such clamps having the verticalcurvature that is com mon to both side parts and being arranged andfixed in a horizontal are, which is convex in one direction for thelower piece of the back, but being fixed in an arc of equal radiusconvex in the opposite direction for the other piece of the back, thesame clamps, therefore,

'or duplicates, answering for both purposes.

Further description of this process will be unnecessary for thosefamiliar with the art.

A and A are the upper and lower parts of the back, respectively, and Bis the seat.

I claim A pew or seat the back of which has hori: zontal curvature inthe same direction throughout its height and which has circumflexvertical curvature throughout its length, the back of such sea-t beingformed of two pieces of bent wood,each curved in one direction onlyvertically and in one direction only horizontally, the verticalcurvature of the two pieces being in opposite directions,- while thehorizontal curvature is in the same direction, said two pieces abuttingat their corresponding horizontal edges, substantially as set forth.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand, at Chicago, Illinois,in the presence of two witnesses, this 3d day of December, A. v

S. 'SPRINGSTEEN. Witnesses:

FRED H. HALEY, J. ELLIOTT.

